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My article on the privatisation of Welsh education first published in the Western Mail 14/03/2013

ONE of the main benefits we have seen in Wales as a result of devolution is that our public services have been largely protected from the race to privatisation that successive governments in Westminster have pursued.

Keeping public services in the hands of the public has been a fundamental principle that Welsh Governments have supported. It is therefore concerning that during the Education Minister’s recent announcement that he was withdrawing the responsibility for education delivery from Merthyr Tydfil council, the possibility of a private company taking over the reins was put forward.

A number of people involved with education in Wales listened with confusion, and fear, at this apparent shift in policy. Not least the many number of NUT teachers living and working in Merthyr who have contacted the union since reading the statement.

The minister’s clear preference, as he stated it, is for the education department at Rhondda Cynon Taf council to absorb the responsibility for its smaller neighbour as part of a merged service. That proposal has its own risks.

There will be serious questions about the capacity for RCT council to be able to do this job effectively, especially considering that the minister’s own home local authority’s most recent Estyn report labelled them no more than “adequate”. The minister himself has previously stated that adequate is “barely good enough”.

A further, more worrying, possibility for the fate of Merthyr was the notion floated that its services could be run by an outside body, including a private sector recovery team. The first question we must ask is why would a company, which ultimately by its nature is focused on making private profit from pupils, be any more able or focused on delivering public service education than the public sector itself?

There is no hiding the fact that there are examples of serious failings at local government level. There are a host of schools and teachers that will detail the lack of support that they have received. However, there is little evidence to suggest that a privately-run service will improve matters.

Research previously published by the NUT in England revealed that local education authorities which have been required by the Government to adopt private sector support and intervention, have not improved as well as authorities where interventions involved non-private sector and non-profit making strategies. In these authorities improvement has been at best patchy and at worst has gone into reverse.

Secondly, there is the simple question of whether or not the maths add up? Schools are already chronically underfunded with pupils in Wales, according to the last available figures, receiving around £604 less a head than their English counterparts.

The ongoing Robert Hill Review, which is looking at the future delivery of education services in Wales, is due to report back to the minister at the end of the month. With the pace of change we are seeing across local authorities at present, there is a growing view that what will be presented could already be out of date, as education continues to be used as the driver for local government reorganisation.

Hopefully, proposals to move towards more private sector involvement, signalled as part of the minister’s response to Estyn’s damning report into Merthyr council’s education provision, will not be central to the recommendations Mr Hill and his team put forward. That would be contradictory to the widely-held view that, while there are clearly challenges that must be met by local government, the support and accountability of the middle tier is crucial. Signing that system over to private companies would be a huge mistake.

The NUT will vigorously oppose any potential moves to privatise our education system, be that in Merthyr, at another local authority or at school management level through the establishment of Academy-style schools. Education at its core is about empowering the students who pass through the system, providing them with well-respected qualifications and shaping their social skills.

Most teachers will tell you that they enter the profession as they want to help give pupils a better future; to guide someone to a successful career, to develop them as individuals academically and emotionally. There is simply no place for profit to be a driver in this discipline.

The Welsh Government has been very vocal in their criticisms of how the Westminster Government have privatised the NHS in England. The principle of their opposition should also be enshrined within the education sector.